By Phillip Butler
Military.com
cross posted at Alternet.org
A fellow Vietnam POW of McCain’s warns of the candidate’s "quick and explosive temper" and suggests McCain is exaggerating his imprisonment.
John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I will not vote for him for President of the United States.
When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58, I was assigned to the 17th Company for my four years there. In those days we had about 3,600 midshipmen spread among 24 companies, thus about 150 midshipmen to a company. As fortune would have it, John, a First Classman (senior) and his room mate lived directly across the hall from me and my two room mates. Believe me when I say that back then I would never in a million or more years have dreamed that the crazy guy across the hall would someday be a Senator and candidate for President!
John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. John had me "coming around" to his room frequently during my plebe year. And on one occasion he took me with him to escape "over the wall" in the dead of night. He had a taxi cab waiting for us that took us to a bar some 7 miles away. John had a few beers, but forbid me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates. (more)
Even though John McCain can’t remember how many houses he and his wife own, his political opponents have been keeping track of the multi-millionares’ holdings.
All told, the seven properties at which the McCains can rest their weary heads after long days on the campaign trail are valued at nearly $14 million, according to two separate research documents obtained by RAW STORY.
Perhaps we should cut the Republican presidential candidate some slack, though, for his fuzzy memory when it comes to counting his houses. With so many ranches, condos and beachfront properties spread across the country, keeping track could prove a little tricky.
"I think — I’ll have my staff get back to you," McCain told two curious Politico reporters Wednesday.
The gaffe has set Democrats on a new populist offensive trying to paint McCain as an out-of-touch elitist. Democratic candidate Barack Obama quickly released a Web ad hitting McCain over the home controversy.
Outside groups like the AFL-CIO and Brave New Films have been making the same argument in recent weeks. (more )
MADRID (Reuters) - Grieving relatives on Thursday tried to identify charred bodies from the wreckage of a Spanish jet, which officials said had been forced to abort a take-off earlier in the day at Madrid airport due to mechanical problems.
Airline officials declined to comment on possible causes for Wednesday’s tragedy in which 153 people were killed, but said that Spanair Flight JK5022 had been delayed due to a problem with the air intake heating system before it attempted a second takeoff for its flight to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
"They supposedly fixed the problem which the pilot later said was with the air conditioning and then we took off," survivor Ligia Palomino told Ser radio.
"The plane was wobbling from one side to another. Then I began to suspect we would crash. I don’t know what happened next. I was in a sort of river and saw people, smoke, explosions — which I think woke me up."
Rescue workers said the only passengers to survive Spain’s worst aviation disaster since 1983 were those who fell into a stream and avoided severe burning.
The government said only 19 people of the 166 passengers and six crew aboard survived the MD-82 jet crash. The airline listed 157 passengers and 10 unnamed crew. A Spanair spokesman could not account for the discrepancy in numbers. (more )
During a townhall meeting yesterday, an audience member asked a long-winded question that ended with a call to enact the military draft in order to “chase bin Laden to the gates of Hell.” McCain immediately replied, “I don’t disagree with anything you said.”
Brushing off his instant response, some journalists are refusing to take McCain’s statement at face value. “Does McCain favor a draft? Nope,” the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder wrote on his blog yesterday, deriding liberals for “having a conniption.” When asked about the quote last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, NBC Political Director Chuck Todd declared he was going to “give McCain the benefit of the doubt,” unbelievably claiming McCain was simply advocating some form of national service:
TODD: Let me just go there and give McCain the benefit of the doubt as to what he might have thought he was agreeing to. Which is that he has been a big advocate on the national service front, as has Obama, as sort of mandatory service in some form, that you see a lot of politicians take. So it is possible that that’s what he was talking about.
Given the context, it is impossible to believe McCain was talking about a kind of “mandatory service” program, not only because he never addressed such an idea in his full answer, but also because, unlike Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), McCain has no national service plan. (more with video )
John McCain, author of much of the federal campaign finance law that requires disclosure of donors, apparently is not insisting on timely transparency by some committees he’s raising money through.
Like Democratic rival Barack Obama, McCain files monthly campaign finance reports detailing the sums he’s raised for his presidential run, as the law requires. His latest report says he collected $27 million in July.
But McCain is legally raising millions more in separate accounts overseen by the Republican National Committee and Republican state parties. In July, he probably raised $5.6 million in those accounts, as the Washington Post noted.
So-called joint-fund-raising committees are permitted to file either monthly or quarterly — and the Republicans have opted to file quarterly. The next report covering receipts from July, August and September fund-raising won’t be released publicly until Oct. 15, less than three weeks before the Nov. 4 election.
An RNC spokesman said the requirement of monthly reports had become burdensome, given the large sums raised. The Republican National Committee filed a monthly report showing it raised $25.8 million in July.
Obama and the Democratic Party have similar joint fund-raising accounts and say they plan to file disclosure reports monthly. (more )
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States and Iraq are close to a deal extending the presence of U.S. troops beyond 2008, but any timetable for their withdrawal must be "feasible," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.
Rice, who flew to Baghdad on an unannounced visit, denied reports that the deal has already been reached but said it was close and she was hoping to iron out any remaining questions with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari also said the deal was "very close," and would include "time horizons" for U.S. withdrawal. He repeatedly stressed that the agreement would be temporary. But neither side would confirm any specific details.
"We’ll have agreement when we have agreement. So all of those stories in the newspapers about what the agreement says probably ought to be disregarded until we have an agreement," Rice told a news conference alongside Zebari.
Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr denounced the pact and said Washington was trying to twist Baghdad’s arm to sign it. (more )
Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host — and one-time general manager of the network - Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.
The moves, which were confirmed by MSNBC executives Tuesday, are expected to be finalized by Wednesday, with Mr. Abrams’s last program on Thursday. After MSNBC’s extensive coverage of the two political conventions during the next two weeks, Ms. Maddow will begin her program on Sept. 8.
MSNBC is highlighting the date, 9/8/08, connecting it to the start of the Olympics on 8/8/08, as a way to signal what the network’s president, Phil Griffin, said “will be the final leg of the political race this year.” He added, “We making that Rachel’s debut.” (more)
Melting ice uncovered a hoax this week, as the “Bigfoot” found in a Georgia woods turned out to be . . . a rubber Halloween costume.
Bigfoot hunters Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer had tossed their find in a freezer and frozen it in a solid chunk of ice - to preserve it, they said. The two men finally turned over the freezer and on Aug. 17, Bigfoot enthusiasts waited with bated breath as the apparent 7-foot-7 inch “body” slowly defrosted at an undisclosed location.
After hours of waiting, a dark patch of hair emerged. Steve Kulls, Executive Director of Squatchdetective.com, told Fox that he extracted a hair sample and burned it. It was apparently made of synthetic fibers and “melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair,” Kulls said. An hour later, the group’s fears were confirmed when further melting revealed a rubber foot.
“It’s heartwrenching,” said Bob Schmalzbach, Vice President of Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., in an interview with Fox News. “We thought it was the answer to a mystery that’s been going on for too long.” (more)
EVERGLADES CITY, Fla. — Tropical Storm Fay made landfall on Florida’s southwest coast early Tuesday morning, flooding roads, cutting power and bringing tornadoes that injured at least three people as the storm moved across the state.
Slow, unpredictable and soggy, the storm surprised forecasters by failing to become a hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico, only to strengthen slightly during the day. Its steady creep northeast toward the Atlantic — with heavy rains and wind speeds of 65 miles per hour, up from 60 overnight — suggested that Fay could pose problems for days.
“It’s remained unusually well-organized for a system that’s moved over land,” said Todd Kimberlain, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center. “Usually after a system follows land, it’s cut off from its energy sources and it weakens significantly.”
The storm lumbered ashore around 5 a.m. near Cape Romano, where Hurricane Wilma hit three years ago, but Fay was far weaker. Wilma, a Category 3 hurricane, knocked out electricity for more than 3.2 million customers statewide. Fay, according to a noon report from Florida Power and Light, cut electricity to 93,370. (more)
On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Fox’s Chris Wallace that U.S. asylum for former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was “not on the table.” However, she refused to explicitly rule the option out, insisting that he had been a “good ally.” Watch it: (more)
U.S. News reports that the Pentagon “will be sending 12,000 to 15,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, possibly as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009.” In light of the soaring violence in the country, Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, has said that he has even requested “some additional forces on top of that for the current fight.” The Bush administration has consistently resisted talking about the deteriorating situation there, insisting that there is nothing “urgent or precarious” in Afghanistan. The Center for American Progress has put together a comprehensive counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan here. (more)
By John Whitesides, Reuters Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Speculation hit a fever pitch on the U.S. vice presidential sweepstakes on Tuesday, with Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain nearing their choices of a No. 2 amid a flurry of sly hints and outright guesses.
Time is running out for the announcement from Obama, whose running mate will be formally nominated at the party’s convention in Denver next Wednesday. His choice is expected by the weekend.
McCain has an extra week to make his pick, and the Arizona senator scheduled a big rally for the crucial battleground state of Ohio on Friday, August 29 — the day after Obama accepts his party’s presidential nomination.
Aides to the Republican candidate declined comment but did not dispute a report he would unveil his choice on that day, which would immediately shift the political focus from Obama’s coronation to McCain’s.
With the selections drawing near, intense speculation about the candidates filled Web sites and cable news talk shows — to the delight of both campaign staffs.
“The candidates want to stoke the speculation with nods, hints and winks to get as much visibility as they can for the ultimate announcement,” said Doug Schoen, a Democratic consultant and former pollster for President Bill Clinton.
Obama announced he would kick off his trip to the Denver convention on Saturday at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, the spot where he formally announced his presidential bid in February 2007 — an indication he will unveil his pick before then so they can make the tour to Denver together. (more)
Health, safety and transportation advocates denounced Tuesday a proposal by more than 100 university administrators to reconsider the legal drinking age of 21 — contending that any reduction would lead to thousands of additional drunken-driving deaths and other harm to the public health.
A letter released by the college administrators did not specifically endorse a lowering of the drinking age, though many who signed it said they thought it should be reduced to age 18. Opponents nationwide as well as in Maryland unleashed a barrage of e-mails and news releases scoffing at the notion that the current drinking age is “not working” and needs to be reexamined.
“Both research and the hands-on experience of state highway safety agencies indicate that this law has saved countless lives. Underage drinking remains a serious problem that needs to be addressed, but lowering the drinking age would be a gigantic step backward for highway safety,” said Christopher J. Murphy, chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association.
Dr. Henry Wechsler, a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health, called proposals to lower the drinking age akin to “pouring gasoline to put the fire out.” (more)
BRUSSELS, Belgium — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday ruled out accelerating Georgia’s admission to NATO in response to the Russian invasion. But she warned Moscow that it is playing "a very dangerous game" by resuming Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols close to the Alaskan coast.
" Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that’s its military power," Rice told reporters en route to an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers set for Tuesday. "That’s not the way to deal in the 21st century."
With Europe divided between former Soviet bloc nations, which seek tough measures, and major powers such as Germany , which is hesitant to jeopardize significant business and energy ties with Russia , it was unclear whether NATO would produce a robust response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia .
Russian forces Monday continued to move around Georgia with impunity, and senior U.S. defense officials said they were troubled by intelligence showing the Russians had deployed SS-21 ballistic missiles into South Ossetia with a range to strike Tbilisi , the Georgian capital.
Rice said Russia has raised questions about its place in the international community through the invasion and other actions, including the resumption last year for the first time since the 1991 collapse of the former Soviet Union of air patrols near the Alaskan coast by Tu-95 strategic bombers, code-named Bears by NATO . (more )
Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films teams up with the AFL-CIO and SEIU to make "McCain’s Mansions: the Real Elitist." Check it out below.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the Service Employees International Union have feuded plenty in recent years, but they have banded together to help distribute and publicize a new online video that characterizes Senator John McCain as elitist and out of touch.
The four-minute video, produced by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, is called "McCain’s Mansions: the Real Elitist" and showcases various McCain homes and condominiums in Arizona, California and Virginia, with one valued at $4.66 million.
While highlighting the wealth of Mr. McCain and his wife, Cindy - the video also includes a cable news clip poking fun at Mr. McCain’s $520 calfskin loafers made by Salvatore Ferragamo - the video also focuses on the tale of Eileen Gillis, described as a systems engineer and sales clerk whose house in Connecticut was foreclosed upon.
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf resigned today in order to avoid impeachment charges for illegally seizing power and mishandling the economy. AFP reports that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “welcomed” the decision in a statement:
The resignation of President Pervez Musharraf is a step toward moving Pakistan onto a more stable political footing. Pakistan is a critical theater in countering the threat of al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism, and I look forward to the government increasing its future cooperation.
While McCain praises the resignation today, the developments also highlight McCain’s poor judgment on the matter. In Dec. 2007, after Musharraf imposed emergency rule and after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, McCain resisted calling for Musharraf’s to step down, calling the Bush ally a “key element”:
COOPER: Is there any other option but Musharraf?
MCCAIN: I think that the new chief of staff of the army is a person who’s clearly going to be a player, because the army will play a role in whatever and however any unrest is addressed. But I think Musharraf, as the president of the country, is probably — and he has stepped down from his military position, as you know — is probably also a key element. (more )
by Luke Harding and Tom Parfitt in Gori, Julian Borger in Tbilisi
The Guardian.uk
(photo at left) Georgian prisoners of war stand next to a Russian military helicopter in Tskhinvali before being handed back to Georgia as part of a prisoner exchange.
Russian troops, tanks and armoured vehicles today began to withdraw from the Georgian town of Gori
The withdrawal was the first indication that Moscow was reducing its military presence in Georgia under an EU-brokered ceasefire.
"I order you to carry out a march along the route Gori-Tshkinvali-Vladikavkaz," a senior Russian officer told troops before getting into an armoured vehicle.
In scorching heat, four Russian armoured vehicles, several tanks, a mobile rocket launcher and trucks set off in the direction of Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia province. Russian soldiers waved and smiled as the column left.
The vehicles passed the village of Ruisi, outside Gori, where Colonel Igor Konoshenkov, a Russian military officer, told an Associated Press reporter that they were ultimately heading back to Russia.
Konoshenkov said the movement was part of the withdrawal mandated by a ceasefire requiring both sides to return to the positions they held before heavy fighting broke out in South Ossetia on August 7.
The first indication that Russia was finally pulling its troops out followed an earlier exchange of prisoners. Yesterday, Moscow said it had begun to pull its forces back following Saturday’s ceasefire agreement. (more )
CHICAGO - Barack Obama will publicly disclose his vice presidential choice in the coming days, though the Democrat is keeping most aides who are preparing for the announcement in the dark and giving away nothing to voters as he campaigns.
The Illinois senator has staffers in place to aid the No. 2 and his or her spouse, including more than a dozen seasoned operatives who have set up shop in a section of the campaign’s Chicago headquarters. They are running through various logistical scenarios involved in taking over the relatively normal life of a person they do not know and thrusting them into the unrelenting glare of a presidential campaign.
Obama was believed to have narrowed his list to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. While it seemed increasingly unlikely that he would choose his vanquished rival, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, some Democrats speculated Monday that he could pull a surprise and pick her.
Former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, a close Obama adviser, said Monday he had given the campaign personal information needed to examine the background of potential vice presidential nominees but was confident he wouldn’t be selected. (more )
Remember when the FBI told us that military microbiologist Bruce Ivins gave investigators a bogus sample of the anthrax from his lab in 2002 — suggesting an effort to mislead and cover up his own connection to the 2001 anthrax attacks?
Well, that might not be true, according to the New York Times. Ivins did give investigators a sample of his own anthrax — which allegedly matched the strain used in the attacks — but the FBI botched the testing process.
But F.B.I. officials acknowledged at the closed-door briefing, according to people who were there, that the sample Dr. Ivins gave them in 2002 did in fact come from the same strain used in the attacks, but, because of limitations in the bureau’s testing methods and Dr. Ivins’s failure to provide the sample in the format requested, the F.B.I. did not realize that it was a correct match until three years later.
That closed-door briefing came as the FBI has agreed to begin providing more details about the science underpinning its case against Ivins.
The bureau is coming forward with more information at least partly in response to the experts who have publicly expressed skepticism about the FBI’s case, which concluded that Ivins was the one and only person involved in the attacks. (more )
Last night, John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis sent a strongly-worded letter to NBC News president Steve Capus, complaining about "unsubstantiated, partisan claims" on the network made "in order to undercut John McCain."
The claim in question was made by Andrea Mitchell on yesterday’s broadcast of "Meet the Press," while discussing McCain and Obama’s respective performance during the Saddlebeck Forum on Faith led by Pastor Rick Warren. The full quote is as follows:
MITCHELL: The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that — what they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama…. He seemed so well-prepared.
In the letter, reprinted by Mike Allen of Politico, Davis claimed that the claim was "completely unsubstantiated" and a "blatant falsehood."
However, the New York Times’ Kit Seelye has boldly backed up Mitchell’s claim in today’s story, "Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’." Per Seelye:
Senator John McCain was not in a "cone of silence" on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California… The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied. (more )
On Sunday, the New York Times front-paged a profile of McCain’s response to 9/11: to retaliate not only against Al Qaeda — but also Iraq, Iran, and Syria. “Now, as Mr. McCain prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination, his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 opens a window onto how he might approach the gravest responsibilities of a potential commander in chief. Like many, he immediately recalibrated his assessment of the unseen risks to America’s security. But he also began to suggest that he saw a new ‘opportunity’ to deter other potential foes by punishing not only Al Qaeda but also Iraq.”
“To his admirers, Mr. McCain’s tough response to Sept. 11 is at the heart of his appeal. They argue that he displayed the same decisiveness again last week in his swift calls to penalize Russia for its incursion into Georgia, in part by sending peacekeepers to police its border. His critics charge that the emotion of Sept. 11 overwhelmed his former cool-eyed caution about deploying American troops without a clear national interest and a well-defined exit, turning him into a tool of the Bush administration in its push for a war to transform the region. ‘He has the personality of a fighter pilot: when somebody stings you, you want to strike out,’ said retired Gen. John H. Johns, a former friend and supporter of Mr. McCain who turned against him over the Iraq war. ‘Just like the American people, his reaction was: show me somebody to hit.’” (more )
Washington - The American military has depended on private contractors since sutlers sold paper, bacon, sugar, and other small luxuries to Continental Army troops during the Revolutionary War.
But the scale of the use of contractors in Iraq is unprecedented in US history, according to a new congressional report that may be the most thorough official account yet of the practice.
As of early 2008, at least 190,000 private personnel were working on US-funded projects in the Iraq theater, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) survey found. That means that for each uniformed member of the US military in the region, there was also a contract employee – a ratio of 1 to 1.
"It is … exceptional the degree to which the military’s currently relying on such contractors," said CBO director Peter Orszag at an Aug. 12 press conference.
In the Korean conflict, the ratio was 2.5 uniformed personnel for each contractor. In Vietnam, the comparable figure was 5 to 1.
The Balkans conflict of the 1990s provided a glimpse of the future, as it also featured a 1-to-1 military-to-civilian worker ratio. (more )
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced Monday that he will resign, just days ahead of impeachment in parliament over attempts by the U.S.-backed leader to impose authoritarian rule on his turbulent nation.
An emotional Musharraf said he wanted to spare Pakistan from a dangerous power struggle.
"I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes," Musharraf said in a televised address largely devoted to defending his record.
Musharraf dominated Pakistan for years after seizing power in a 1999 military coup, making the country a key strategic ally of the U.S. by supporting the war on terror. But his popularity at home sank over the years.
But his influence has faded steadily over the past year. He quit the pivotal post of army chief in November and his resignation was widely forecast.
Washington and European capitals will hope his removal will let the civilian government focus on terrorism and the country’s economic woes, though Musharraf’s exit could also trigger a struggle to replace him. (more )
I met with a friend to review my resume and interview techniques in lieu of no firm job offers to date. While I am somewhat stubborn, I felt that maybe it was time to get a neutral party’s advice.
First thing, my comrade suggested was to drop the U.S. Senator
MADRID (Reuters) - Grieving relatives on Thursday tried to identify charred bodies from the wreckage of a Spanish jet, which officials said had been forced to abort a take-off earlier in the day at Madrid airport due to mechanical problems.
During a townhall meeting yesterday, an audience member asked a long-winded question that ended with a call to enact the military draft in order to “chase bin Laden to the gates of Hell.” McCain immediately replied, “I don’t disagree with anything you said.”
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf resigned today in order to avoid impeachment charges for illegally seizing power and mishandling the economy. AFP reports that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “welcomed” the decision in a statement:
Last night, John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis sent a strongly-worded letter to NBC News president Steve Capus, complaining about "unsubstantiated, partisan claims" on the network made "in order to undercut John McCain."
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced Monday that he will resign, just days ahead of impeachment in parliament over attempts by the U.S.-backed leader to impose authoritarian rule on his turbulent nation.